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Sunday, June 8, 2008

Chogyam Trungpa - Universal Love

This week's Ocean of Dharma quote from the works of Chogyam Trungpa talks about "real" love, not the kind we see on TV or in the movies, but the kind of love that is fully accepting and open, that recognizes and embraces the dark as well as the light. When we love someone, if we truly love them and not some illusion of who they are, we engage in this form of universal love. This is the love that arises from the heart of the warrior.

DEVELOPING UNIVERSAL LOVE

There have been so many speeches about love and peace and tranquility in the world. But how do we really bring love into being?...Many people get very romantic about love, in fact get high on it at the very mention of the word. But then there will be a gap, a period when we are not high on love. Something else takes place which is embarrassing, a private matter. We tend to seal it off. It is "private parts," shameful, not part of our divinity. Let's not think about that. Let's simply ignite another love explosion, and on and on we go, trying to ignore those parts of our being we reject, trying to be virtuous, loving, kind. Perhaps this will put off a lot of people, but I am afraid love is not really the experience of beauty and romantic joy alone. Love is associated with ugliness and pain and aggression, as well as with the beauty of the world. It is not the re-creation of heaven. Love or compassion, the open path, is associated with "what is." In order to develop love -- universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it -- one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad. One must open oneself to life, communicate with it.